Daniel Jones is so singularly focused on football that the Giants’ quarterback is able to block out everything, and not just the deafening national and New York scrutiny.
“Even the good things,” backup quarterback Drew Lock said Tuesday in the locker room. “Like people love [Jones’] beard. I like the beard. I think the beard’s sick on him.”
But Jones told Lock and third-string QB Tommy DeVito before practice that he was unsure whether he was going to keep the facial hair for the Giants’ Week 1 opener against the Minnesota Vikings at MetLife Stadium.
“We’ll see,” Jones said with a smile. “I haven’t decided yet. Gametime decision.”
Lock said he and DeVito were adamant: Jones can’t shave it.
“Me and Tommy were like, ‘You gotta keep it, you gotta keep it,’” Lock said with a smirk. “He told us today literally right before practice. We were like, ‘Dude, you gotta — no.’ We came back in the quarterback room and were like, ‘No, keep it.’”
Jones truly does not spend his time worrying about anything that won’t improve the Giants’ results inside the white lines, though — even if the beard provides, as Lock joked, “great aura” and good vibes for a quarterback in this bright spotlight.
“You hear all the buzz about what it’s like to be a ‘Q’ in New York, and he’s definitely seen and heard it all, but I think he’s done a great job,” said Lock, who took his own lumps in Denver and Seattle. “He’s had to deal with it for six years now, right? At some point he figured out how to shut it off, what really matters.
“The dude loves football,” Lock added. “All he thinks about is football. He’s just so obsessed with it now that he can block out everything else.”
Blocking it out doesn’t mean Jones is unaware, however. How could he be? The criticism of him has never been louder nationally.
He has practically reached Dak Prescott status in the NFL’s land of talking head hot takes: if there’s nothing else going on, shows will just run highlights of the Cowboys’ or Giants’ QBs throwing interceptions while ranting about how Prescott or Jones can’t get it done.
The slander reached a crescendo after Jones threw two interceptions, including a pick-six, in his first game back from ACL surgery against the Houston Texans this preseason. And Jones knows what is being said about him, even though he refuses to pinpoint anything specific that has fired him up.
“I don’t think there’s anything in particular,” Jones told the Daily News Tuesday while sitting at his locker and holding a tablet as he prepared to review practice film. “You sense it. You understand kind of what’s being said. [But] I’m always fired up, and I’ve always played and worked and carried myself with a chip on my shoulder, if you want to use that term.
“I’m fired up, I’m determined, I’m driven, all those things,” Jones continued. “And I understand what’s out there, what’s being said. I certainly don’t like it. But I’m gonna work as hard as I can, play as hard as I can, do everything I can for the guys on this team and make sure I’m putting the team in position to win games.”
Jones, 27, said all of this calmly and confidently. He is disciplined and focused. He knows all that matters in this second season of his four-year, $160 million contract is that he plays well, stays healthy and wins games.
The constant harsh conversations about Jones’ abilities and salary have to be difficult for those close to him, though, right? For the people who have supported him through thick and thin?
“I don’t know about difficult,” Jones said. “Anytime someone that close is being — I don’t think they appreciate it or like seeing it, either. So you understand that. But I’m lucky to have the family I have. I’m still very close with all my siblings and my parents, and they’ve been a huge support to me, a huge help since I got in the league, especially getting hurt last year and going through all this. So I’m very grateful to have them in my corner.”
That seemed to be a theme with Jones on Tuesday: the people around him support him.
It’s well-documented that Joe Schoen and the Giants tried to trade up with the New England Patriots to take a quarterback in April, of course. Jones didn’t love watching that, either, and that means there is plenty of internal pressure on him, too. It’s not just coming from the outside.
In the locker room, though, Jones said he feels the support of teammates like Darius Slayton, who recently backed him as a franchise quarterback to the Daily News in the face of all the haters.
“Yeah, I feel like we all have each other’s backs here and we’re all in sync and ready to go,” Jones said. “I certainly appreciate Darius and have a lot of confidence in him. We’ve played a lot together. We all have each other’s backs here. I think that’s important in the locker room, to support each other. And I certainly have everyone else’s backs.”
Perhaps that support from his peers is what emboldened Jones not to shy away from a question Tuesday about whether anything short of the postseason would be a failure for these Giants.
“Right now, our focus is on Minnesota and making sure we’re ready to go and taking care of business [in] the first game, get off to a good start,” Jones said. “We have high expectations of this team, and we certainly plan to play in the playoffs, plan to play in the postseason. And we’re gonna get there by focusing on what we’re doing right now.”
That’s a quarterback focused on football — not the beard, and not the haters.
McFADDEN LIMITED
The Giants’ first official injury report does not come out until Wednesday, but inside linebacker Micah McFadden (groin) was limited to only individual drills in the team’s first Week 1 practice. It remains unlikely he will be able to play against the Vikings … Re-signed corner Adoree’ Jackson worked with the punt returners and did individual reps with the corners but did not do 1-on-1 and 2-on-2 drills against the receivers while the media was observing.